and baby makes two
by Someryn
Summary: Buffy doesn't make a natural mother, but she will protect Connor or die trying. An alternate timeline in which Connor's birth happens after Season 7 of Buffy. Oneshot.


**SUMMARY** : Buffy doesn't make a natural mother, but she will protect Connor or die trying. An alternate timeline where Connor's birth happens after Season 7 of Buffy. Oneshot.

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE** : This has been sitting on my computer 90% finished for years. I went ahead and finished it - sorry for any inaccuracies about the post-Buffy Season 7 universe! My last time watching Angel was several years ago.

* * *

 **and baby makes two**

Angel's eyes are haunted black the evening he turns up on her doorstep in Edinburg, clutching an opaque plastic box to his chest like it contains a piece of his soul.

"The last thing I'll ever ask of you," he tells her, handing her the box reverently. "Protection. For the most important thing in the world."

Buffy accepts the box numbly while her lips move without settling on which words to say. Angel's eyes are intense, trying to communicate something she doesn't have the context to understand.

She hasn't seen Angel in over a year. Her fault. She fled California after Sunnydale fell because she was exhausted, because she thought the world could do without her for a year or two. Maybe that was selfish of her. Maybe he needed her.

These words and more flutter on the tip of her tongue, and Angel seems tied to her front door by the strength of her gaze.

Then the box Buffy is holding _moves_ , and she kneels on the threshold, brushing aside the blanket and reaching inside gingerly.

When she rises again, it is with a sleeping baby in her trembling arms, and Angel's car is speeding down the road, faster than she could ever hope to catch up with him on foot.

* * *

Baby formula, diapers, bottles, and baby clothes fill the box underneath a hastily scrawled note -

 _This is Connor._

Buffy carries the infant carefully to her couch, resting him against her knees and staring down at him. His bright eyes focus on hers, and when she places a finger up to his face, he clutches it and squeezes.

"I don't know what to do with you, Connor," she tells him honestly. "I don't know anything about babies."

Even her false memories of caring for Dawn are of merely a child's clumsy help - their age gap isn't large enough that she was ever put in charge of Dawn as a baby. Her mother was always there to scoop Dawn up when she screamed, seeming to supernaturally sense when she was hungry or fussy or bored.

Buffy wishes she could pass Connor on to more capable hands, but she is positive Angel wouldn't hand her a child, of all things, to care for unless she was his true last resort. Who in his life must have failed him to make her his best choice?

The baby gurgles and scrunches up his face. She wonders if he is hungry. She lays Connor down on the couch while she cautiously prepares a bottle of formula.

"I hope the people who know how to take care of you come back soon, Connor," she tells him over her shoulder.

When she returns, she holds him gingerly in her arms, not sure how much pressure a baby can handle, and adjusts him until she figures out what is comfortable for both him and her.

"For both our sakes."

Connor gurgles again and drinks half his bottle before falling asleep against her breast.

* * *

She flees to France once the shock wears off and three demons try to murder Connor within twenty-four hours of Angel's departure.

She makes a single stop beforehand to ask Willow if there is something that can call her to the spot, prepared for battle. Buffy must establish a succession plan for Connor's safety if she fails to protect him.

Willow had asked her why, of course. Buffy had repeated Angel's words, because she doesn't know the answer herself. "The most important thing in the world."

Willow had raised her eyebrows doubtfully but handed her a wooden amulet an hour later.

Buffy knows Willow had expected her to be running off on a lone mission, probably not to be gone for more than six months, a year at the most. That was what Buffy had hoped, too.

It's been almost five.

"Tell me what you do while I'm fighting."

"I sit in the tree and don't move and don't talk," Connor responds immediately. They are walking toward one of the ancient graveyards in Nice, the sun just setting behind them.

"What do you do if the bad guys kill me, but they don't see you?" Buffy asks the question, as she asks all her questions, unflinchingly. Connor knows about death; he must know the possibility when his only protection is a Slayer.

"I wait until I can see the sun, and then I break my necklace."

"What if I'm just hurt and you want to come down and help me?"

"I stay in the tree until you come get me."

"What do you do if the bad guys see you and I can't stop them from getting to you?"

"I break my necklace and then I break my jar."

"And what about your hands?" she prompts.

Connor holds up his hands, still plump with baby fat, in front of him. "I get the water on my hands and hit the bad guys, even if it hurts."

He has a vial filled with holy water, and she doesn't want him to take the time to unstopper it if something is coming to kill him. Holy water will harm almost any demon, and she hopes it will be enough to delay them until Willow can come. He knows breaking the glass will hurt his hands, and she knows that he will do it anyway.

"And when is the only time you come out of the tree?"

"When you or Willow come get me."

Connor acts as if he knows Willow, even though he has never met her. Buffy, out of both loneliness and for practical purposes, has shown Connor every picture she has of her old friends and told him what they are like. He talks about Xander and Dawn and Willow and Giles like he's known them as long as she has, and he understands that Willow will come as fast as she can and kill the demons if Buffy can't.

Buffy looks down at Connor. He has fair skin, auburn hair, and wide brown eyes. Something in the lift of his lips when he's happy, the profile of his nose when he turns, is a childish reflection of Angel's face. How that can be, she has less than zero idea.

He looks like was dressed by a mentally ill Catholic nun. He has a vial of holy water strung around his waist like a belt, and a crucifix necklace and wooden amulet hung around his neck. After months of pleading, she'd finally carved him a wooden stake, sized for his own hands, which he clutches in one hand. She doubts he has the strength yet to force the weapon through a vampire's chest even if she held the vampire down for him, but she understands the urge not to be defenseless.

Their daily ritual complete, Connor tugs on her left hand beseechingly - he knows her right hand always has to be clear to reach for a weapon. "Mommy, can't I help? I can fight!"

She has never asked him to call her his mother; has never asked him to call her anything, uncomfortably aware that she is taking that right away from another woman, one who, for all she knows, loved Connor and wanted to keep him.

But it's just been her and Connor since the day Angel dropped him on her doorstep. She's read to him ever since he was a baby because she didn't know what else to do with babies besides feed them and diaper them, and she plopped him in front of the TV while she made dinner or searched for temporary jobs that would let her keep an infant with her.

She taught him his numbers and how to read interspersed with gymnastics and fighting lessons, and somewhere in his toddler years he slid easily into calling her "Mommy" without her ever saying the words.

She strokes his hair while keeping her eyes on the darkness around them. The desire to fight she understands, too. She wonders if it was inborn in him or something she'd taught him unintentionally through example.

"You know when I'll let you help." She's promised him a crossbow for his seventh birthday, and a dagger for his ninth. What a strange and horrifying life she leads them on. "That's soon enough. You know how old I was before I got to fight."

"Fifteen," he says glumly. She knows how long that must feel to him. Three times his life away.

They reach the graveyard, and Buffy stiffens in the awareness that her gift provides. There are two vampires in range, not close but just now sensing her presence and coming toward her. Connor senses the change and holds up his stake like he's going to help her.

Buffy doesn't go patrolling like she used to before Connor; unwilling to let him out of her sight or put him in more danger than she must. Fortunately, demons and vampires sense her presence if she gets near enough. So now she picks her battlegrounds and lets them come to her.

It's not as fun, but that was a girl's play, not a woman's. Especially not a woman who is the sole protector of a hunted six-year-old. She can hardly remember the girl who used to find slaying if not fun, than at least entertaining. Slaying is a necessity now, nothing more.

She leads them to a tree she's used many times before in this cemetery: a wide, tall oak with a sturdy V shape and its first branches almost twenty feet off the ground. She scoops Connor up, his fifty pounds almost nothing to her, and he clutches her tight as she scrambles up the trunk, setting him down carefully into the branch.

She checks to see that he's holding his amulet in both hands. He is. He is a dutiful and bright child. She leans forward to kiss his forehead. "I love you, Connor," she tells him.

She has that right, at least, to love the boy she's raised almost since his birth. If she dies, she wants his last memory of her to be that she loved him.

He nods somberly. "Love you, Mommy."

Then the two vampires are coming for her from the shadows, and she jumps down and begins yet another fight for her life.

For _their_ lives.

* * *

Connor is a few month shy of ten when Angel finds them. Buffy had known a vampire was nearby, and she'd wondered, but she had decided to let him come in his own time. Her life with Connor has taught her patience. She's waited long enough; she can wait a few more days.

They've lived in Marseille for almost a year now. Buffy works as an English tutor to a wealthy family with three young daughters, and the pay is good enough for her to afford a tiny apartment with a private fenced yard for their training.

Connor has his crossbow aimed at Angel's chest in seconds, his arm straight and his eyes steady, and Buffy is proud of his instincts. Within the past year, he has learned to recognize a vampire on sight - no rise and fall of the chest, an instinctive flinch from any exposed lighting, a grace in stride that shows it is stronger than it looks.

He looks at her for permission to shoot - she's been letting him kill from a distance ever since he turned nine - but she shakes her head and steps toward Angel.

"This is Angel, Connor. He's different from the others. He has a soul."

Connor gives her a disbelieving look, and she can't help but be amused, remembering how disbelieving she had been when she'd first met Angel. Fifteen years - half her life - ago.

Angel stares from Connor to her like he's seeing two ghosts. "I'd hoped that you-" he chokes, glancing at Connor again "- both were still alive, but I thought you would be on the run. You're...comfortable here. You have a life here."

And so she does. She's still terrible at speaking French and always will be, but her comprehension is almost perfect now. People in their neighborhood recognize the two of them, and she takes Connor and the girls on day trips around Marseille frequently.

Buffy is immediately on the defensive. "We've been safe the entire time. Connor's been safe. We don't have to live hand-to-mouth to do that. We have a good life here." She chokes on the last sentence, fighting down a burst of fear and glancing down at Connor.

"You are happy, aren't you, Connor?"

She has never asked that, and she should have. This is why she makes a terrible guardian.

Connor steps in front of her, his crossbow still half-raised, like he's going to protect her from Angel. He is already way past her waist and is heading toward her shoulders. He's going to end up as tall as...

"Of course, Mom," Connor says. "Are you going to tell me what's going on now?"

Angel's indrawn breath and unceasing stare are enough to draw Buffy's ire again. He handed her a baby with no instructions other than to run and keep him safe; of course she didn't handle it perfectly, what the fuck was he expecting?

There are so many cutting words she wants to say to him, but not in front of Connor, who is confused enough that she is talking to a vampire that he has never heard about.

"Yes, Connor, I will. Would you like to come inside?" she asks Angel stiffly. "We were about to have dinner." The French eat late by American standards, and it's just barely nine. She steps closer to the door.

Connor turns to stare at her. "You're going to let him in?"

She understands his confusion; she's taught him better than that. "Angel's an exception," she explains. "He wouldn't ever try to hurt us." She glances at Angel and raises an eyebrow. "Would you?"

How much has changed?

His mouth drops open. "You two are the very last people on the entire planet I would hurt. I'd stake myself, first."

"Why?" Connor demands. "Why do you care about us so much?" He steps in front of her again, and Buffy rests her hands on his shoulders to calm him, but it's a question they both deserve an answer to.

"I think Angel's going to come inside and tells us exactly that," she says, staring at Angel unblinkingly.

He shakes his head in wonderment. "Yeah," he says. "I will."

* * *

Connor is angry with her, and that hurts Buffy more than she would have ever expected. Angel had wanted to send him to bed, but Connor had every right to hear this. It is the story of his own life, after all.

It's all a confusing mess, and Buffy doesn't really care to untangle it all. Darla and Angel as humans, a prophecy, Angel's last desperate chance to get his son (his _son_ ) protected. Through her.

She's sitting upright in bed, when Connor walks in from his tiny second bedroom. His brows are furrowed, but he doesn't look as angry as he was.

He climbs up on the foot of her bed and tucks his knees under his chin, staring at her.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asks.

Buffy has never offered excuses to Connor, and she won't start now. "Partly because I only knew the pieces. Everything Angel told us tonight was news to me, except him bringing you to me as a baby. The other part is because I didn't know if you knowing would put you in danger. The other, _other_ part..." she shrugs uneasily. "I didn't want you to miss your mother and wish you had her, when you got me instead."

" _You're_ my mother," Connor says sharply. Then his lower lip trembles. "What, do you not want to be? Are you going to get rid of me now that you don't have to protect me anymore?"

"Of _course_ I'm not," she says, horrified at the thought of losing him. "I love you. Forever. It doesn't matter to me that I didn't give birth to you, but I understand if it does to you."

She draws in a shuddering breath and says the words she knows she must say. "We both know that your biological mother is dead. But if you want to go with Angel, I'll understand."

Angel had offered that, had offered a life in LA to them both. Buffy had declined for herself. She wants her friends back, if they'll have her, and their lives are in England now.

Connor shakes his head, not even hesitating. "No. I do want to talk to him, but it's still me and you, right? That's what you always say. Me and you against the world."

She strokes his cheek, and her tears finally spill out. "Always and forever, Connor."

* * *

Dawn punches her, full in the face, when Buffy and Connor walk out of the security exit at Heathrow. Buffy staggers - her sister has an excellent arm on her now - and gasps out, "It's okay, Connor," before she can do anything else.

She and Connor don't have their weapons, of course; they're packed away inside their checked luggage, but they are each carrying pocket knives as long as security will allow. Sure enough, Connor is reaching inside his pocket for his.

"She's just mad at me," Buffy tells him soothingly, resting her hand on his arm as she regains her balance.

"You'd better believe I am," Dawn says fiercely, then counteracts her bravado by bursting into tears.

Buffy reaches for her, unconcerned about any other potential physical attacks, and her sister hugs her so tight that she can feel her ribs creaking. "I _missed_ you, Buffy," she sniffles.

Xander tugs Dawn gently out of the way so he can bear hug her himself, lifting her feet off the ground and making her smile. "I'm pretty sure you could hear Dawnie's shriek from outer space when Giles said that you were coming back."

Dawn scoffs, and Xander grins at her. Willow steps forward, already sobbing, and buries her head in Buffy's shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, Will," Buffy murmurs, squeezing her best friend back. "I had the best of intentions."

She finally steps back, scrubbing the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hands. Connor is still standing there, wary eyes glancing from Buffy to her friends, looking lost.

Buffy wraps her arm around his shoulder gently, drawing him into her side. "These are Dawn, Xander, and Willow," she tells him. "You remember me telling you about them."

He nods uncertainly.

She squeezes his shoulders, and feels a warm burst of tenderness and protectiveness. She looks back to her friends. "Guys, this is Connor. My son."

 ** _fin_**


End file.
